Friday Podcast & DLD: The Stretch Drive

Happy Friday, Athletics Nation! Oakland's magic number is down to four, and the team still has three more games against the Twins. Things are looking promising.

On today's Phil Naessens Show, we discuss Oakland's sweep of Texas, their series loss to the Angels, Grant Balfour, and the back-end of the bullpen. Listen to the show right here on Athletics Nation by using the media player embedded below. I'm leading off, so just press play and enjoy 17 minutes of A's talk. Stick around for the third segment (around the 41-minute mark) for Brandon Kraeling of Red Reporter:

Give it a listen and leave your feedback in the comments!

Your Daily Link Dump:

- J.P. Breen of Fangraphs takes a look at Coco Crisp's (unsustainable) power surge.

- Steve Staude explores why strikeouts matter for batters.

- A variety of writers chime in on the best players not in the Hall of Fame.

- Andy Pettitte is retiring. Again. For reals this time. Cheers to a great career, HGH or not.

- Manny Machado may be the Web Gem champ, but at least Josh Donaldson made the short list.

- On this day last year, the A's beat the Tigers and I posted my wrap-up of Blog Day at the Coliseum.

Dump away!